Saturday, August 22, 2015

Yangzhou, China

Google translate is a powerful tool. I like to figure out exactly where my mail comes from. Right down to the post office. On this cover from China it's right there in the postmark, but in Chinese. Fortunately Google translate lets you draw characters for it to translate. As you draw the characters, it provides a set of possible matches. Select the closest match and Google will translate it for you.

In this case, the four characters on the top of the postmark, 江苏 扬州, are Jiangsu Province, Yangzhou (Jiāngsū yángzhōu). The bottom characters, 邗城, translates as Han City (Hánchéng). If I then search for "邗城 post office", Google finds a post office in Yangzhou on Hanjiang Road. That must be the post office this was mailed from.